Parc National des Iles-de-Boucherville / Two-owl day!

Deer plop

Crowded airspace above Dan

White-tailed Deer Odocoileus virginianus

Eastern Grey Squirrel Sciurus carolinensis

Common Raven Carvus corax

female Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis

male Northern Cardinal Cardinalis cardinalis

Barred Owl Strix varia - note the blood on the chest

Barred Owl Strix varia

  A two-owl day! Hard to beat that. Insert double hooters joke here. On a day so cold that we quickly resembled ruddy-cheeked snot-walruses, Dan and I hit a charming island park just to the east of Montreal, for our last birding trip before I migrate east. Well, west.
  It can't be understated how difficult everything associated with birding becomes when the temperature drops to -30 with wind chill.  Inexplicably tangled bino and camera straps, eyelashes freezing into a cage, moribund extremities, and frozen gear make it all fairly miserable. Miserable but challenging and fun, I guess. Exposed fingers will freeze in 20 seconds, and for some reason, when it's that cold out, my shirt invariably becomes untucked, exposing my delicate midriff to winter's pointed fingers. It's alarming how difficult thinking becomes when it's that cold. I quickly revert to my natural state when it's cold - a childish, drunk euphoria. Oh look, it's birds, huh huh, yaaaay!
   Ahh, frozen gear. Here's a tip - don't exhale on your binos or camera, or you will be scraping a sticky layer of ice off lenses. And here's another tip - wrap your optics in something and let them 'acclimatize' to the heat slowly when bringing them into a heated car or house after being exposed to extreme cold. Trust me on that one. One more tip - keep your camera battery in your glove until you need it. And that ends 'Matt's Arctic birding tips' for today.
  If there was a disappointment on the day, it was the lack of finches. Finches were ostensibly the reason we were there in the first place, but we soon forgot all about finches. To be fair, we just looked at a map, pointed at the island and said, 'Maybe there will be some neat finches there.' 
  A Barred Owl, supposedly one of three on the island, was napping inconspicuously at the edge of a small woods. It was well-camouflaged, while giving nice views relatively close to a main trail. Well, it was until a couple of novice photogs got wayyy too close and flushed it. Clap clap clap.
  On that subject, there was an alarming amount of questionable field craft on display today, some real head-scratchers. 'Hey, there's a Saw-whet Owl, let's have a noisy giggles-n-guffaws session directly below it!' Appalling, ha ha. Ah well, it takes all sorts, I suppose.
  Nothing beats the early morning in Gimpo when a middle-aged Korean lady photog sat cackling noisily on her cell phone while myself and several other birders were staked out at a drainage ditch, waiting on an understandably reluctant Plumbeous Water Redstart. I thought I was on some hidden camera show, it was that ridiculous. Whoa, I'm ranting, time for bed.
  Then there was the star of the day. The Northern Saw-whet Owl was...spectacular. So much so that it merits its own post.
  A two-owl day!